66 replies to this topic

[tmertz]

I am not qualified to answer your QuickBooks questions. Other Distributors might provide suggestions. We are trying to add most of the features QuickBooks offers to DistributorCentral.

We encourage Distributors to do all their order management through DistributorCentral and then download the order summaries to QuickBooks. You can invoice your customer and send purchase orders to Suppliers within DistributorCentral. You can also provide proofs on your website to your customers. Soon your customers will be able to place reoders and check shipping status of their orders from your site. You can prepare proposals and quotes.

We are constantly adding features to improve your productivity with your customers. You can do business with all your Suppliers using DC although it is easier with Suppliers that have products listed.

If you have sales reps each sales rep can have their own website and see only their own orders. We have Supplier contact information for most of the Suppliers in the industry. I think we are above 50% of the top Suppliers coming on line with their products. DC has the highest Distributor usage of any industry site so we are recieving strong consideration by all Suppliers.

[Chris Miller]

tmertz said:

You can do business with all your Suppliers using DC although it is easier with Suppliers that have products listed.

Tom,

Just FYI, this is our biggest concern, and it's why we continue to put orders into quickbooks and not into DC. We want to have it all in one place.

[imprint]

To; Mark246
Order Master... $1785 for a 2-station setup... Plus a $500 annual fee? Actually it does everything I need.
I have been an OrderMaster user for 14 years. The easy of handling order entry and re-orders is the best. I find that the $500. for support is well worth it. They have toll free phone & fax support and ALWAYS call me me back promptly. You are thinking "why is he calling support after 14 years/" - Things happen! Regardless, they get my highest endorment and if you want more specifics contact me & we'll talk.

[R YOOD- MAS]

imprint said:

To; Mark246
Order Master... $1785 for a 2-station setup... Plus a $500 annual fee? Actually it does everything I need.
I have been an OrderMaster user for 14 years. The easy of handling order entry and re-orders is the best. I find that the $500. for support is well worth it. They have toll free phone & fax support and ALWAYS call me me back promptly. You are thinking "why is he calling support after 14 years/" - Things happen! Regardless, they get my highest endorment and if you want more specifics contact me & we'll talk.

I'll second everything that Marty says about OrderMaster, and I go back even futher than 14 years with them, before it was even called OrderMaster. Right Marty :)
Best use for your money and time.
Richard Yood, MAS
The Promo Deli
Tallahassee FL
rick@thepromodeli.com

[TheOne]

That is Essent. Not Essex
www.essent.com

Jeremy said:

After looking at all the software for our industry on the market, I gave up and we wrote all our own software. This way when we want it to do something we just write our own code instead of relying on other software vendors. I wasn't impressed with the solutions that were not open source, such as ASI Profit maker. Quickbooks has come a long way. They now have a on line edition that I use to run my real estate company. The only solution I have seen recently that I have been impressed with is Essex. They use a MS SQL back end.

[TheOne]

Mark- Essent is designed for larger distributors with bigger needs and budgets

Mark246 said:

I've read this entire thread, and I'm still looking for a good, inexpensive program... I'm a 2-man shop, working from my home,... can't afford $thousands$. Currently using MS Excel templates for POs & Invoices, text files and .jpg images for the product info, Sage books for supplier info, MS Outlook for most of my communications with clients, and None of it is well-coordinated or linked or related. The retyping or copy/pasting is taking Way Too much time.

Order Master... $1785 for a 2-station setup... Plus a $500 annual fee? Allegedly does almost everything we need, but I'd like to see more comments from current users, please.

Order Ontime from www.orderontime.com... about $2000. I found it online, but I know nothing about it. Anybody out there using it? How is it?

Epromo for $5000? Might be nice, but too much $$.

Jack Malki posted about his new program... I've emailed him requesting info.

Essex? Anybody using it? Details?

Xetex from Xebra.com?... $3500 for a single user system. Too much.

Quick Books... $500 for 1-user or $1500 for 5 users. What does it Not do that we distributors want?

We need answers ! !

[imprint]

I can not believe that this discussion is still going on. All this time and he still has not made a decision! To me it is not a matter of being a one person or two or 20 person distributor, it is a matter of how many orders one does, how many re-orders. I still stand by my recommendation of OrderMaster. I'm not a large distributor, but I process orders quickly, easlily and efficiently with OrderMaster. If he would have purchased this in March when this all started, he would have 6 months of history & experence with the program.

[Mark246]

Marty,... Back in April (as posted here) I got QuickBooks and my wife has been working with it ever since. It seems to be doing a fairly good job for what's needed. There's still the problem, though, of needing to enter a different "item" for each quantity. That's a pain.

Regardless, I think these threads are meant to be perpetual, so that a bunch of readers can maybe learn something. Who knows,... maybe next week, somebody will post info about a whole new program that does Everything a Distributor needs, and even makes the coffee !

[perfmktnw]

Anyone have any new info. on accounting software? We are considering Quickbooks or Ordermaster.

[R YOOD- MAS]

Ordermaster, in conjunction with Quickbooks for the General Ledger end of the business is all a small to medium size Distributor or Supplier needs. Been using the man's products since 1990 with great success.

[TheOne]

It really depends on your needs. Do you just need something for invoicing, payables and receivables? Do you need to get into inventory costing methods. Do you have consigned inventory? Do you have multiple branches? Do you manage rebates and royalty programs? How about commissions? Mulit-juristictions of sales taxes? etc. It is real difficult to say one accounting package is a perfect fit for everyone out there. Each distributors has some unique processes that gives a competitive advantage in a certain niche. Quickbooks should be good for most one man shops who drop ship but may not provide the GAAP standards others require.

[JON]

I use Quickbooks pro 2005. It does everthing I want from estimates to po to invoicing. Writing checks is a breeze. I can email then accounting to my cpa. done.

[ActvGrfx]

Hi all,
First post. We run Macintosh, but need remote access to our system. We are looking for a program which will combine Order/Customer Management and Accounting, but allow remote access without having to use remote control programs such as Timbuktu. Right now we have a Filemaker solution, and if we can't find anything, I will be making one with Filemaker. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks,
James

P.S. Our budget is tight at this point. We do around 3.5 Mil, but should be at 4, so were going through changes, and our software is one of them.

[imprint]

At the PPAI show I saw that Order Master has significantly lowered its price. It is now about $500 for a single user and $700 for a 2 station user. They were asked to do so by PPAI.

[perfmktnw]

That is great news. I've heard good things about Order Master, but was unsure. Thank you for this info.

imprint said:

At the PPAI show I saw that Order Master has significantly lowered its price. It is now about $500 for a single user and $700 for a 2 station user. They were asked to do so by PPAI.

[Elizabeth]

JON said:

I use Quickbooks pro 2005. It does everthing I want from estimates to po to invoicing. Writing checks is a breeze. I can email then accounting to my cpa. done.

JON - I would love to chat with you about Quickbooks. We just purchased Pro 2006. We too noticed that you need to enter each item in the 'items list' prior to being able to add it to an invoice. Obviously, this is a huge hassel. Is there a work-around for this?

[graphicdetails]

I've used QB Pro for a few years and am now using QB Pro 2005. I don't list a bunch of items in the "Item's List".

I have two items set up for sales - "Sales - In House" and "Sales - Suppliers". Both of these items are set up as non-inventory items and assigned to my sales/income account. Every time I have an order, I choose which one it is, in house or through a supplier, and then type the item number, description, etc into the order/invoice.

For purchases I have one Item set up called "PO - items for resale" and it is linked to my Purchases account (again as a non-inventory item). When I create a PO, I choose that item and then type in the info.

The only other items are for Sales Tax, Freight, Discounts, etc, all assigned to their applicable accounting accounts.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are referring to, but that's how I handle the "Items" list.

[thevelvetfrog]

I just bought OrderMaster and do not have the patience to learn it! I call for support, but they are on Seattle time and always manage to call back at 6:45 our time....Frustrating, but long and short of the story, I hired an employee and let her go yesterday. I don't need this software just for me. Anyone interested, I would love to re-coup some of my money and give you a good deal in return. Thanks! Carmen
The Velvet Frog, Inc.

[ActvGrfx]

thevelvetfrog said:

I just bought OrderMaster and do not have the patience to learn it! I call for support, but they are on Seattle time and always manage to call back at 6:45 our time....Frustrating, but long and short of the story, I hired an employee and let her go yesterday. I don't need this software just for me. Anyone interested, I would love to re-coup some of my money and give you a good deal in return. Thanks! Carmen
The Velvet Frog, Inc.

Do you know if it will run on Macintosh?

Thanks,
James

[thevelvetfrog]

I went on the website and looked through my software information, but did not find any mention of Macintosh or Windows specific software. You can call them, go to ordermaster.com, and ask if it is compatable. Let me know.....Thanks@! Carmen